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It's nice that somebody can make some money out of adding a material library to Blender... but it begs the question: WHY doesn't Blender already have a ready made material library for users to choose from? It is the single most obvious omission from the Blender interface.

I have guessed for a long time now that Ton was concerned that a built in material library within Blender would stifle innovation, and encourage people to be lazy and just use an existing material. Currently you are pretty much forced to learn how to make materials from scratch. Since everyone does it, the result is a huge diversity of materials, node setups, and techniques, which has enriched the Blender community.

Yes, it means there are some crappy materials and renders out there. But it also means the good ones are more interesting and different to each other.

Now that the Blender community is becoming more mature, a material library can perhaps live next to bespoke materials without as much risk of stagnation.

Of course I could be completely wrong. The developers were after all pretty busy with lots of other functionality (thanks a heap guys). Maybe it just never made it to the top of the list.

But soeme very simple materials might do. Like some software offers a metal, grey and light blue plastic, one marble, and a single tile pattern. Enough to see what is possible and giving a hint to continue. And so little everyone realizes 'i've got to edit this'.

Innovation will be permanently stifled if new starters give up when they can't work out how to make the default cube look nice. First they have to work out how to assign a material to an object, and then if they want to change the material they are left with an awkward panel of settings, or (if they even discover the node window) another confusing editor to learn. To me, making everything so hard to use is plain stupidity. One of Blender's main barriers to new users is the complexity. It should be possible to start up Blender with the default cube, click on a pretty shiny chrome icon in a materials panel, and click 'Assign'. All done, one shiny chrome cube, and the new user is instantly delighted when they press F12. Now perhaps they'll be interested in learning more about Blender, instead of uninstalling it in a rage.

Stupidity is to think you could just open a 3D package and do what you wanted.
Do you honestly know of a 3D package that allows you to make the default cube "look nice and chromy" in a very limited number of steps with zero knowledge of 3D?

There's such an incredible amount of resource online to guide beginners in their learning that stating "Blender is too hard" is now obsolete. If you're new to 3D, you are not going to know what materials, textures, lights are and what they do.

I used max for a couple of years before switching to Blender. I watched tutorials, searched Blender's equivalent to max's tools/workflow whenever I was stuck and I felt home in Blender rather quickly.

So, no, Blender is not really harder than other packages. It's just a 3D package and they're all powerful and complex, there's a lot to learn.

There is no guiding. There are no step by step instructions. If beginners give up simply because they cannot get the default cube looking good then they are destined to give up anyway. A set of stock materials is all very nice but the only way you are going to learn anything is by trying it out for yourself.

If I start Microsoft Word, I can format a document using nothing but the ready-made styles offered in the toolbar. If I want to learn how to customize them I can, but I don't have to until I'm ready - and of course I can't make things look exactly as I want them until I do. Blender's attitude is simply "f**k off unless you're serious", and like many people (back in 2.4x days) I initially uninstalled it, totally defeated.

Blender desperately needs a 'newbie mode', including a material library, to get people interested.